The mob that hails the man on horseback, the Caesars and conquering heroes, does not retain its freedoms for long.
Interpretation
Historical admiration often leads to the loss of individual freedoms.
Sidney Hook suggests that societies that glorify and idolize powerful leaders or heroes, such as conquerors, may inadvertently sacrifice their freedoms. This reflects a cautionary stance on the dangers of hero worship and authoritarianism, emphasizing that the allure of strong figures can lead to oppression rather than liberty.
In practice
During a discussion about historical leaders, one might reference this quote to highlight the risks of authoritarianism.
A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life.
Everyone recognizes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. . . Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values. Since these cannot be separated from the human organism and the social scene, the moral ways of man cannot be understood without knowledge of the ways of things and institutions.
In contrast to totalitarianism, democracy can face and live with the truth about itself.
Tolerance always has limits - it cannot tolerate what is itself actively intolerant.
Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.
The easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.
The fact that we're all here in these bodies means that we're not perfected.
Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion.
To call someone 'anti-American', indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination.
To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.
From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year...death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.
Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.
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